Eagles Making a Home on Sheriff's Communications Tower

WINTER HAVEN | Bald eagles are a relatively common sight in Polk County, but they're a really common sight around the Polk County Sheriff's Office Operations Center.

By TOM PALMERTHE LEDGER

WINTER HAVEN | Bald eagles are a relatively common sight in Polk County, but they're a really common sight around the Polk County Sheriff's Office Operations Center.

This fall as many as 60 of these large birds of prey have been roosting at night atop the 190-foot-tall communications tower near the building.

Reinier Munguia, president of Lake Region Audubon Society, noticed the roost a few weeks ago.

He invited other Audubon members to watch the nightly gathering Monday.

“This is unusual,'' Munguia said, explaining he discovered the roost during his work in monitoring the local bald eagle population in connection with the coming nesting season under a program called EagleWatch.

The birds are primarily immature eagles. Bald eagles don't get full adult plumage and begin to look for mates until they're 4 or 5 years old.

However, a few of the eagles on the roost had adult plumage.

Lynda White, retired director of the EagleWatch program at Audubon's Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland, was among the crowd Monday afternoon.

She said the adult birds were either birds who hadn't found a mate or birds who had lost a mate.

White found the roost encouraging news for eagle conservation.

“This shows the population is increasing,'' she said.

Bald eagles, which have been protected for decades by various federal wildlife laws, were placed on the endangered species list in 1967 because of drastic population declines in most of the country as a result of exposure to pesticides, habitat loss and some illegal shooting. Bald eagles were removed from the endangered species list in 2007, but remain protected from shooting and harassment.

White said the only other large communal roost she knows about in Florida is in Osceola County and attracts only about 20 birds.

According to a survey from 1997 to 2004, most of the bald eagle roosts in Florida contain only a handful of birds.

Unlike wading birds' roosts, where birds arrive in flocks, the roosting eagles arrived in groups of one or two.

Many appear to be coming from around Lake Hancock or from the nearby North Central Landfill.

As they arrived, Audubon members recorded the progress.

“That's number 31,” someone yelled out.

As darkness fell, the total grew quickly.

By dusk, the number crept toward 40.

Counters were briefly distracted as a flock of mosquitoes began roosting on their bare skin, one of the minor hazards of wildlife watching in Florida.

The roosting progress was recorded on video from the ground by Susie Warren from the Audubon center.

She said the video will be posted on their Facebook page.

Matt Smith, White's successor at Eaglewatch, said he had heard about the roost and had to drive over from Maitland to see it for himself.

“This is a really cool thing to see,'' he said. “It will be interesting to see what they do when the weather gets chilly.''

In colder climates, bald eagles typically roost in less exposed areas, such as forests, to escape the cold as much as possible.

The experience was not just a visual treat.

The eagles' high-pitched chattering calls were clearly audible on the ground.

“They're very social birds,'' Smith said. “The young ones tend to be gregarious.”

Not all of the observers traveled from Orange County.

Ken and Judy Rogers of Lakeland said they stopped by after getting an alert from Audubon.

They said they'd never seen anything like this except during a trip to Alaska, which has the United States' largest bald eagle population.

According to some accounts, 3,000 to 4,000 bald eagles congregate along the Chilkat River in Alaska during salmon runs.

For Polk County Sheriff's Office employees, the roost is quite an attraction, said spokeswoman Donna Wood.

“We see them in the morning and the evening; it's so cool to see that many,” she said.

Wood said seeing that many eagles in flight is impressive.

She and her colleagues have been taking photos, too.

“It's unique and it's right here,'' Wood said.

[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. Read more views on the environment at http://environment.blogs.theledger.com a/. Follow on Twitter @LedgerTom. ]

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